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Media DUBLIN, Ireland—US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will
meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and UN peace envoy Lakhdar
Brahimi Thursday as world leaders desperately seek an end to the
conflict in Syria.

Amid fears the 21-month conflict which has already claimed some
40,000 lives may take a gruesome new turn, the three diplomats were to
hold crisis talks on the sidelines of an international meeting in
Dublin.

"Secretary Clinton has accepted an invitation by UN special envoy
Brahimi for a trilateral meeting on Syria this afternoon with Mr Brahimi
and Russian FM Lavrov," a senior State Department official said.

US officials hope there may be a new willingness by Moscow, a
staunch ally in Damascus, to probe ways to bring more pressure to bear
on Assad to step down. The United States has been calling for some time for Russia to use
its leverage with Assad to try to open the way towards a political
transition. Moscow has been a staunch ally of Assad and has vetoed UN Security Council resolutions aiming to sanction the regime.

But it did initially sign onto a peace plan crafted by Brahimi's
predecessor, Kofi Annan, until it wavered in the face of imposing
punitive UN action if Syria refused to implement the accord.

Clinton and Lavrov met first on Thursday morning for bilateral talks
in which a US senior official said they both agreed to "listen to what
the special envoy has to say."

"They both have a lot of respect of his mission and want to be supportive of it," the State Department official said.

Washington has so far provided humanitarian, non-lethal aid to the
rebels, but refused to arm the opposition amid fears of pouring weapons
into an already volatile region, where anti-US militant groups are
springing up.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul on Monday on a trip focused on resolving
sharp differences over the conflict.

Last month, Erdogan said Russia held the key to the Syrian conflict,
and that if Moscow took a "positive" stance in the Security Council it
could push another key Damascus ally Iran to review its policies.Add
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